Deleted Scenes

Kevin Catalano's collection of stories, Deleted Scenes delights because, as an editor might cut scenes from a film, those cuts assembled into a montage become far more enthralling than the film. The "deleted scenes" become the bonus, as in "Ghost in the Womb" when the expected gothic horror of blood bubbling up from the shower drain seems normal because the plumber says it is so: "Son, you know what I've found in people's pipes?" So, we get coffee. In such a montage, it is possible to lose virginity twice, to become royalty, despite "eczema and constant smell of fried chicken and sausage gravy," and the "measure of man" was his ability to "take it." The stories are wild, innovative and unabashed."